Some of the bloggers may have seen this piece of review about a year or more ago. Then my friend Roker, an excellent reviewer, and I created a common almanac on Dawn of war, but alas, it did not receive much warmth, and from those days I kept wanting to put it in my collection of reviews. Actually, I’m putting him up for public trial.

The first thing that comes to mind after uttering the phrase is the universe of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, which is, of course, a sea of ​​blood, wild action, heavy metal, orcs, circular saws and the confrontation of the holy word against the vile minions of chaos. To the roar of many other cruel and incredibly pathetic words, we meet Dawn of war: Dark Crusade!

There is somewhere to go for a walk in the wild..

Compared to the original Dawn of war, the campaign has undergone significant changes. Yes! Now I felt scope, freedom! We were given the entire planet Kronus to devastate, destroy and burn, divided into twenty-five different sectors, each with its own climate. Lifeless, dead deserts coexisted with densely overgrown vegetation, jungles and cold, snow-covered glaciers. Each of the races chose a climate to their liking, well, orcs won’t settle in glaciers, it’s difficult to disguise themselves as white when you’re all green, well, there’s no need, because the Eldar feel much better and more comfortable here, and orcs naturally wouldn’t mind rolling around in the mud and in rainy weather under the canopies of the tropical forest.

Well, to each his own, but while the orcs are enjoying the mud baths, we will move on. Somewhere in the depths of the planet Kronus, under kilometer-thick layers of earth, there are necrons-killing machines, terminators in the flesh! What’s scary? No? Well, this is a fixable matter, you just have to look at the two squads of prisoners who hung themselves with powerful pieces of meat and pulled on someone’s skin like a new shirt, along which scarlet blood flows in streams. Yes, your squads of Marines will scatter to the sides faster than they will start shooting at the enemy, and that’s right, what a bullet can do to metal? Nothing, so let’s go into hand-to-hand combat where, strictly speaking, you will also lose because instead of ordinary fists or swords, these guys have half-meter-long steel claws, which can be used to cut the armor of the strongest dreadnought in no time and crumble the best fighters of the empire into a salad. It’s creepy isn’t it?

But the Necrons are not the only new race added to the game, because somewhere in the northwest a new civilization-empire Tau arose, which is famous throughout Kronus for its latest technologies and the most ferocious beasts, which they saved in case of a powerful frontal attack by the enemy, and their fiery arrows on the battlefield have no equal. Their goal is to unite all living beings into one clan and create peace throughout the world! The task is certainly not an easy one, but the Tau army inspires with its strength and determination to incinerate with plasma everyone who gets in its way.

In total, we have seven races, seven coalitions, seven rivals who are fighting for survival on a small planet, and you can take control of any of the sides: you want to side with the emperor and, with the help of space infantry, expel heresy from the holy land, or bow to the gods of chaos and lead hordes of demons into a great battle, or you can stop miserable disputes and take the side of the arrogant but at the same time extremely prudent and wise Eldar or with with the help of a tough dictatorship and unquestioning obedience, suck all the juice out of the planet and give battle to everyone who dares to encroach on the “gold mines” of the Imperial Guard, or, as a last resort, gather a horde of savage orcs under your banners and arrange WAAAGH. Finally, the developers realized that we were already tired of constantly playing as space infantrymen and we wanted to get into the shoes of a much more interesting race, for example, to lead the cruel Necrons, sweeping away everything in their path, and this is an excellent innovation because the replay value soars to the spiers of the Imperial monasteries and you will naturally return to this game more than once. Now let’s take a closer look at the campaign.

Soaring under https://noidverificationcasinos.co.uk/ the clouds

After choosing a race and watching a colorful introductory video, we actually found ourselves on the global map ala Total War and thanks to it, there were an order of magnitude more strategic calculations: who to attack, what lands to capture in order to obtain and develop new technologies, and where to improve defense or even create a good base by placing several barracks and heavier turrets, all this played a very important role because everywhere you are surrounded by enemies, no allies! Forget everything, you are alone but you must win!

But who will lead your fierce fighters into a difficult battle?? Naturally, your military leaders, who have now become just a killing machine, a deadly whirlwind, sometimes an unfavorable course of battle can be turned around by just one commander, but how! After all, compared to the previous parts of the series, they were hung from head to toe with various gadgets, for example, the Tau commander is not strong in close combat, but if you hang a flamethrower, a plasma thrower and a rocket launcher on him, and even give camouflage to boot, then the enemy troops will not have time to come to their senses before they turn into a pathetic pile of rotting corpses. Moreover, after receiving some kind of uniform or weapon, your hero really changes in the tradition of the best RPG games.

But the computer enemy is not asleep either, he behaves extremely aggressively, trying to capture as many territories as possible. This time he is not a stupid idiot, no, he is a tactician, a strategist, after several hours spent in battle against him, you are already beginning to forget that this is a computer in front of you. You are trying to predict his actions, think like him, act like him, but be ahead of him in everything. Wandering through the densely overgrown jungle, it seemed to me that now, right around that turn, Orc grunts would jump out at my space infantry squad, and I would not be able to retreat back, because green-skinned arrows would start shooting at me from behind the bushes with lead. In general, over time you begin to expect such complex combinations from AI, but in principle this is what happens.

Let’s figure it out for two

But no matter how good the AI ​​is with a human mind, it still can’t compare, and you can’t share the feeling of joy of victory with it, so it’s better to play with friends in online battles, but let’s go back a little and remember the general mechanics of battles. What were the battles on the maps like?? Everything naturally began with the construction of our own base: various factories, barracks, armories were available to us in full, but do not think that everything was so easy, we rebuilt the barracks, created soldiers and rushed into battle, no, a properly built base is half the victory, because if the enemy unexpectedly attacks your fortress, you will not be able to properly keep it intact until your reinforcements arrive, so you need to place various turrets along the perimeter and in lay mines in narrower passages. On the other hand, it won’t be possible to cover the entire base with turrets, because the maximum number of them is only six, and you also need to protect control points, this is easier for the orcs, for them shooting towers are the main income WAAAGH. Therefore, they can build them in virtually unlimited quantities. The outcome of base defense is also influenced by the correct placement of buildings: it is better to hide generators with energy further away and cover them with barracks. There is no energy, no cars, and they are an extremely significant trump card here.

But in order to sort it all out, you need something? That’s right – resources, and they are supplied here in two copies: the first is energy, and the second is our requisition resource. Well, with the first it’s clear, we install “nuclear reactors” and get energy, but with the second it’s a little more complicated. You see, in this strategy you will not be able to sit in a tight defense because the requisition resource is extracted from captured strategic points. A soldier ran up, stood there and captured the point, ran away, and then another soldier ran up and intercepted the cloud again, so, stop, it’s a mess. No matter what such incidents arise, special defensive fortifications with a machine gun are built, right on the flag. A soldier ran up, received a bullet in the forehead and died – problem solved. And that’s why we can’t sit behind the gates at the base, we need to constantly attack and capture points, without giving the enemy the slightest chance of rehabilitation.

So there are resources, the base is built and protected with the latest technology, you can go on the warpath. We churn out the infantry in squads of four, but technology doesn’t stand still, right?? Therefore, in these times, cloning technology is in full swing. A couple of clicks and we already have a squad of nine people, or even more. And so, over time, we are gaining quite a large army. Well, let’s go to battle.

We are all different

Each race in the game is truly unique and inimitable, and playing for each faction you will achieve truly interesting results. The Orcs win in quantity, the Eldar – with powerful spells, the Space Infantry – with faith in the emperor and holy power, the Tau – with the latest technologies, the Imperial Guard, like the Orcs, at one time in quantity, but at another in quality, the Necrons – in impenetrable, fearless, deadly machines, Chaos – a horde of demons and a terrible incinerating all around hellish force. Each race has its own advantages and disadvantages, for example, the Necrons do not need the requisition resource; all their troops feed only on energy, but the orcs may take quantity, but the build quality of their vehicles is simply terrible, and you can see that at the slightest touch their tank will fall apart, and there is no need to talk about weapons at all, it’s not even clear how their machine guns still manage to fire. From these little things on the one hand such a delicate balance is formed.

But Dawn of War was not only famous for this, the main thing for which people bought it from the shelves was to play excellent multiplayer. Fighting in the company of friends and coming up with new strategies and tactics was very fun and exciting, and even to this day many people measure their strength and intelligence in this wonderful game.

There were also plenty of different battle modes in this RTS. These were both the usual smashing the enemy base to hell, and holding strategic points for a while, this mode, by the way, is now very popular in Dawn of War 2, there is also a mode – accumulate more resources for a certain time, before your opponent gets ahead of you, or keep your commander alive, because you have only one! These are for the most part the main modes, because the rest are just variations of them, but also quite interesting. So try it out and play with your friends online! Overall enjoy it!

It’s a small thing, but it’s nice

And finally, I’ll tell you about such little things as music and graphics. What can I say about the graphics, in those days they were simply magnificent. Mesmerizingly large dreadnoughts and steel-armored space infantrymen. Excellent special effects of fire and shells exploding in the distance. A sea of ​​blood and dismemberment. All this is done in a dark gothic style with high-quality soundtracks created for each race, which do not let you get bored in the midst of the most fierce battles! The very sounds of gunfire, angry cries of soldiers and enemies begging for mercy do not fade away even for a minute, it seems that you are somewhere out there, in the middle of the battlefield, fighting shoulder to shoulder with brave space marines against the hellish demons of Chaos!

Previously, it was just great, but now, unfortunately, few people will be surprised by this; when fully zoomed in, even with the naked eye you can see that the models clearly lack polygons, as in the whole graphics. Although the animation is still at its best, the level of physics is no longer good; we already see a man soaring in the sky from the impact of a robot in every second RTS, but at that time it was really very cool. To say the standard phrase that the main thing in a game is not the graphics, but the gameplay, would be too boring, we already know that. So I’ll just say: Forget about these graphics, play and have fun.

TESler was with you, we remembered the old days, so to speak)
Thanks everyone and good luck!